Perceived Stigma and Quality of Life Among Women Living with HIV/AIDS

Quality of life (QoL) is a broad construct and can be influenced by many factors. Perceived stigma is inevitable in patients with HIV. Therefore, it is an important factor to understand their QoL. The current study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the perceived stigma among HIV-positive women and their QoL in Shiraz, Iran. In this quantitative study, 110 HIV-positive women were selected by simple random sampling method. A questionnaire was designed and used as a tool for data collection. The questionnaire included demographic information, internal stigma scale, and the ACTG short form-21 (SF-21) for measuring QoL. Data were collected from March to August 2015 and analyzed using t- test, Pearson’s correlations, and the multiple regression test with the SPSS software version 21. The mean age of the women was 37.86 ± 9.03 years. Most of the participants were infected with HIV/AIDS through sex with their spouse (78.2%). About one-third of the women had physical symptoms (29.1%) of the HIV disease. The prevalence rate of perceived stigma in the sample was 69.7%. Quality of life was significantly different in terms of employment status, emotional support and physical symptoms (P < 0.05). A higher level of perceived stigma among HIV-positive women is associated with a considerable decrease in all QoL dimensions. Thus, more efforts should be considered to reduce the perceived stigma and improve the QoL of such patients.